Nuances
by madam.cipher
Summary: /Percy x Annabeth/ In which a love story is told in thirty sentences.


_Percy Jackson and the Olympians belongs to Mr. Rick Riordan. I'm just borrowing his characters for a while._

_A/N: Thanks to Hikari Kotoba and Crystaligems for helping me out._

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**1) Eclipse**

There was once a time when Annabeth thought she was in love with Luke Castellan – but then she went on a quest with Percy Jackson (and Grover) to retrieve Zeus's master bolt; and from then on, her perception of the ideal man began to change: she started favoring short-ish, dark-haired and green-eyed over tall, blonde and blue-eyed.

**2) Summer**

There were many reasons why Percy loved summer: no school, no homework, going back to Camp Half-Blood, and, well… maybe, just maybe, seeing Annabeth again – but he'd rather take on ten Minotaurs all at once than tell her that.

**3) Sun**

Sure, Percy was annoying most of the time, but every once in a while, he surprised Annabeth, either by saying something sweet or cracking a joke that was actually funny; whenever that happened, Annabeth's mood would invariably lighten for the rest of the day.

**4) Guitar**

Percy was quite fond of comedy, and there were a lot of things he found funny, but Annabeth struggling to play a chord was definitely the most hilarious of them all.

**5) Arrow**

"_This_ is how you hold a bow, Seaweed Brain," Annabeth sighed matter-of-factly, reaching over and rearranging the boy in question's fingers into the correct position, ignoring the warmth that coiled in her stomach when their hands touched.

**6) Chain**

Percy and Annabeth were _not_ amused when the Stoll brothers decided to handcuff them together and hide the key in the Dionysus cabin.

**7) Handkerchief**

As Annabeth walked away after pressing a square of pearl-gray linen into Percy's hand, Silena sidled up to Percy and slyly informed him that in medieval times, women would leave their handkerchiefs with the knights they favored whenever said knights were about to ride off on a quest or compete in a tournament; when this sank in, the resulting blush on Percy's face made tomatoes seem pale in comparison.

**8) Dream**

The first time Annabeth had an, er, strictly grown-up dream about Percy, she couldn't look him in the eye for two weeks afterward.

**9) Notebook**

It was an open secret at Camp Half-Blood that the Stoll brothers (with occasional help from Nico di Angelo) kept track of how many times Percy and Annabeth saved – and were saved by – each other; so far, Annabeth had a clear lead in the former category, disproving once and for all the notion of her being a damsel in distress.

**10) Ocean**

Apparently, being a son of Poseidon doesn't make up for a natural lack of surfing ability, as Percy, Annabeth and the rest of Camp Half-Blood found out one particularly hot day.

**11) Winter**

A white blanket covered the ground when Percy woke that morning; it looked beautiful, gleaming faintly in the sunlight, but when he stepped onto the fire escape, the cold air cut all the way into his bones – which, when he thought about it, was quite a fitting metaphor for Annabeth Chase.

**12) Hope**

When Percy looked her in the eye before deciding to turn down immortality, Annabeth dared to think that maybe, just maybe, her feelings weren't so unrequited after all.

**13) Fame**

Once the war against Kronos had ended, it became increasingly difficult for Percy to go out in public without being mobbed by a horde of demigoddesses and nymphs (much to Annabeth's chagrin).

**14) Game**

Annabeth would forever rue the day she decided to give Percy a Nintendo DS for Christmas – sometimes she'd have to pry the wretched thing from his hands and put it on a high shelf just to be able to have a halfway decent conversation with him.

**15) Coffee**

The mark of a good boyfriend is knowing what his girlfriend's favorite coffee is; however, it took Percy six or so dates to realize this (and that Annabeth favored mocha frappes with extra whip and a shot of vanilla).

**16) Tragedy**

As cliché as it sounded to compare her and Percy's relationship to that of Romeo and Juliet, Annabeth knew she had more reason to do so than any other love-struck teenage girl (or boy).

**17) Dance**

Watching Percy and Annabeth attempt to dance was always amusing – when they weren't stepping on each other's toes, they were moving to a completely different beat.

**18) Message**

As a concerned girlfriend, Annabeth wasn't above occasionally checking up on Percy via Iris-message, just to make sure he wasn't getting the crap kicked out of him in his sleep by monsters (or cheating on her with some naiad).

**19) Impulse**

Percy knew it was only natural for a pretty girl like Annabeth to be stared at, but that still didn't stop him from instinctively reaching for Riptide every time a guy's eyes lingered a little too long on Annabeth's chest or rear end.

**20) Autumn**

Annabeth was of the opinion that playing in the freshly-fallen leaves was far too childish for the official architect of Olympus, but there wasn't much she could do when Percy – against whom her kicks and punches were rendered useless – grabbed her around the waist, threw her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, marched out the front door and tossed her into a sea of foliage.

**21) Rain**

Contrary to popular belief, Percy and Annabeth's favorite way to spend a rainy day did_ not_, in fact, involve slicing up whatever monster was currently terrorizing the neighborhood; rather, the young couple preferred to sit on the couch with a fire blazing cheerfully in the hearth, drink hot chocolate, and challenge each other to staring contests or verbal sparring matches.

**22) Spring**

What should have been a nice, normal evening at the junior prom was rudely interrupted when a giant, bloodthirsty scorpion burst into the gym; with a resigned sigh, Percy and Annabeth pulled out their respective celestial bronze weapons and charged at the monster – and as they did so, Percy had to marvel at the pluck of a girl who was willing to do battle in her best dress.

**23) Commitment**

Even after nearly four years of dating Percy, Annabeth found she still wasn't quite ready to say the L-word yet.

**24) Shiver**

When trapped in a snowbound car with your significant other and a broken heater, there are always *ahem* _alternative_ methods of keeping warm…

**25) Ring**

After scouring most of the jewelry stores in Manhattan (and annoying the personnel of said stores with his indecision), Percy ended up finding the perfect ring for Annabeth in a tiny antiques shop run by a man who looked oddly like Hephaestus.

**26) Child**

The very first fruit of the Jackson-Chase union was born on a crisp October afternoon – his name was Nathan, and while he looked just like his mother, his personality was almost a carbon copy of his father's.

**27) Pride**

As Percy held his infant son for the first time, the sense of accomplishment that flooded his veins was a thousand times greater than anything he'd ever felt after completing a quest.

**28) Betrayal**

There were times, usually after he and Annabeth had had a particularly serious fight, when Percy would lie awake in bed and think – not of Annabeth or how to make amends, but of Calypso, and whether she might have been a better wife than his current one.

**29) Reunion**

When Annabeth finally made it to Elysium, three years after Percy did, her first order of business was to kiss his brains out; her second was to give him a resounding slap and berate him for leaving her high and dry.

**30) Eternity**

After seeing the commotion Percy and Annabeth were making (and how it was frightening the other residents of Elysium), a smirking Nico remarked to Bianca, "Eternity's gonna be pretty interesting now that those two are here."

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_A/N: I tried my best to arrange the sentences in a vaguely chronological order, and I have no idea if I succeeded. LOL._


End file.
